INTRODUCTION
Hello, this is Rmcoo and welcome to my 17++ guide on all maps, and what I’ve learnt past years from this game, i will talk about various strategies, civilization choices, and tactics on all popular maps, and the improvisations. This information is by no means 100% correct, but I will try give you as much facts as possible, I won’t write build orders, just talk about general strategy.
Arabia 1v1
Pretty much the most played map out there, and it has always been the most popular map in all years AoC has been alive,and mainly played only with huns, strategies has been varying from Full feudal skirmishes with Skirmishers and Spearman’s, to full walling and advancing to castle age as quickly as possible, into Scouts + Archers >> Castle age CA(Cavarly Archers) which is the most popular strategy, which consists of basic concept. You advance to feudal age at about 9:40-10:10 Make 4-8 scouts (Depends on the map you have, what your opponent is doing, what castle time are you trying to achieve) When making 8scouts you typically want to add bloodlines too, into archers (2Archery ranges into 4Archery ranges when advancing) After getting castle age you have wide possibilities to do, from full CA, to rams, skirmishers, knights, lcavs. Possibilities are endless. But that’s not the only strategy you can do, and not only Huns that can be played on this map. Carlos Ferdinand has proved that early M@A can do a lot of damage if are not dealt quickly with. The basic point of M@A is to arrive when enemy hits feudal age with 3-5 M@A and sometimes with some forward villager to make it into fwd, or just to distract your opponent with your M@A enough to gain you economy advantage, faster up times, also when you make M@A your opponent will almost always make archers, which makes up for a good skirmisher rush. Other very popular strategy is Drush into wide possibility of variety. Drush stands for Dark Age Rush, which means making Militia who arrives at enemy base before he hits feudal age, to distract economy enough, to let you hit feudal age with much better economy, in order to or advance to castle age really fast, or do really strong rush. Though it’s not so common to see a Huns drush, but its popular with meso civilizations (Mayans, Aztecs) Since the eagle warrior is stronger than scout, also Aztecs has +50gold which helps for having 2extra militias. There is other strategies like Full Scouts, which involves never advancing (or advancing very late) To the castle age and making fully upgraded scouts in feudal age from 3+ stables. Very old-school style involved never ending feudal wars, which mainly consisted of skirmishers and spearman, but it’s not used to this day since it’s not considered effective anymore.
Arabia 4v4
There is two main positions. Flanks and Pockets. Flanks goal is to survive feudal-castle age with the help of pocket, and raid down enemy flank. Flanks spawn on the side of teams.
Pocket goal is to help their flank surviving, and killing enemy pocket with knights. Their main goal is to advance to castle age as fast as they can, and start producing knights while doing a little bit of boom. They spawn in the middle of the team. If pocket is a meso civilization which is Mayans or Aztecs, since they can’t make knights they have to make other units. As for Mayans its pretty easy, their UU is fast, cheap archer which is fast enough to arrive at flanks and effective. Aztecs on the other hand doesn’t have good choice, so they often end up walling themselves, hoping flank would survive and go fast imperial spamming EEW (Elite Eagle Warriors) Into their opponents. If Aztec player is confident enough, he can try and rush enemy pocket with forward mush (Monk rush).
Another possibility is to set up a big Team Wall (Having half of the map walled by the same team) And try to get to imperial age and have technology advantage on their enemies.
Arena 1v1
Very interesting game, in early stages of the game considered boom-style map which trying to get to imperial and pump out those expensive, fully upgraded units. These days, with a lot of Edie_ Influence arena has become very aggressive map, which usually ends up in one player rushing the other down. Very important thing in this map is considered Relics, since they give gold overtime and they are usually pretty easy to get. Relics are collected with monks, placed in monasteries and give gold overtime. This is where the first strategy comes from and the strategy we will start talking about which is smush (Original name is from Saracens Monk rush) But this term is used for monk rushing with any civilization, that has good amount of researches available for monks. The point of this strategy is to convert anything you move into, and with siege try to push your opponent out of the game. With researches like Redemption (Allowing you to convert siege and buildings) and sanctity (giving your monks +15hp) Block printing (Your monks has +3 range) they can become unstoppable. Monk rush relies heavily on gold so its often known strategy, to not make any villagers, instead have almost all your economy on gold, have 4+ monasteries and just spam monks. The fact you don’t make economy allows all your concentration and micro go in controlling monks. The following is the TOP 3 civilizations to go for monk rush.
1. Aztecs
2. Saracens
3.Japanese
Another strategy we will talk about is castle drop. The name of it tells everything you need to know about it. From the moment you advance to castle age, you build castle by your opponent walls, make UU , Siege, sometimes monks and push your opponent out of the game. The castle age time you should aim for is ~15:00 best civilizations to do is which has ranged UU. Such as. Mayans, Britons, Koreans, Franks (Cheaper castles helps a lot) Turks, Spanish. The variation of this strategy is to castle drop and try to reach imperial age very quickly. (min 20-23) to produce trebuchets, siege and UU or monks with Block Printing (+3 range) with doing this strategy, you might want to make mangonels if your UU is archer type unit, otherwise you will be very weak to ram push from your opponent. Main point when rushing is to prevent your opponents spreading to the sides of the map, which often contains little piles of gold and stone, and opponent can recover. Also its recommended to get all the relics, since you will be the one controlling all the map. There is other popular strategy, trying to advance to castle age as early as possible (14min+) Building one monastery, trying to collect relics before your opponent is castle age and just booming (making big economy). There is other types of rushes which involves making siege, and knights, eagles whatever you can think of. Also there is fun strategy with civilizations that has good UU that works well versus buildings mainly Vikings, Huns, Japanese. You advance to castle age in average time (16~min) Build castle in your base that It cant be noticed by enemy with scout. Building as much UU (Unique Units) and fully upgrading them before enemy has too big economies, making two petards to destroy their walls, bringing your units inside their economy quickly killing town centers and villagers. Very all-in strategy since if your opponent is able to defend from it, you are out of the game. But can be very fun and work.
Arena 4v4
Actually not much different from Arabia 4v4, but the flanks do not flush (Feudal age rush) but instead they go for castle drops, siege push, monk push… Anything that could work. While pockets try to boom up, or sling (Sending resources) to their flanks in order for them to do overwhelming push and leave the game in 3v4 stance.
Water 1v1
Most common civilization to this setting is Vikings, because of cheaper docks and boats they become dominant in water, the goal is to advance at typical Arabia feudal age time 10:10 and producing galleys from 3docks (later adding more) The food for villagers should be gained from fishing ships produced in dark age (3-5) This is probably most micro required type of game. Where you always have to move around with your galleys and stop only for 1second to shoot. Fletching should be priority before fighting, while focusing on the fight don’t forget to check for idle villagers, and never forget to keep your town center occupied. In Castle age the most important technology to research after war galleys is ballistics. Since without it your opponent can run 2-3 war galleys from side to side in front of his army and all your war galleys will miss their shots and you will lose the battle badly. Ballistics makes your ships always hit the target you shoot, and it is researched at university. Late game gold becomes very important, the guy who is first to sell as much as resources in market as they can, before the price goes of usually wins. Relics are also very important. Any islands containing gold should be used if you are controlling the water, recommended building castle on them too. If you receive full water control in imperial age, very important ship becomes Cannon Galleon since it can destroy buildings from land. It requires Chemistry, and custom research at the dock to be able to be made. Also possible to upgrade them into Elite, giving them more range and attack.
Water 4v4
Not much to be told here. Water control is the most important thing, and should be achieved with entire team teamwork. Often there will be players who will stay longer in feudal age to control water in feudal age. Who will stay longer in castle age, and control the water in castle age, same in imperial age. Some civilizations are better for land attacks, these civilizations should be utilized to transport villagers onto enemy island and try to raid their economy. If you have pretty secure back water, water trading with trade cogs is an option too.
Water/Land maps
This is basically for following maps: Baltic, Mediterranean, Crater Lake, Atlantean relics
The game play shouldn’t be different from water maps, but there is additional strategies. On these maps Mongols becomes an option, due to their 1min earlier advancing, and players having docks very near each other, you can kill enemy fishing ships before they even get to feudal get, and giving yourself huge advantage. Also on these type of maps even if you lose water, land attack is still a possibility since land is connected, the only issue is the map is usually pretty easy to wall, and should be done immediately after you start taking lead in water. On other maps like Atlantean relics and Crater Lake there is very limited amount of gold in the land, and water control becomes super important.
There is not much different from Team Games to 1v1, so I’m not splitting these sections.
Regicide Fortress 1v1
You start with loads of villagers, prebuilt base, and walls around you.
Not common, but very fun map. Often stricted to Mayans and Chinese, since their UU is cheap and effective. Point is to try and go to castle age very quickly due to starting amount of villagers. Trying to get 3Town centers while producing your plumed archers or Chu-Ko-Nu. If you control the land you can try and raid your opponent with your archers, get forward castle on them, try to push them with siege. All of these options tend to be effective.
Black Forest
Map which is usually played in TG 4v4 or 3v3, since its play style is very similar to Arena there is not much to write here. Map is covered in wood and there is small passages between each players. Very easy to wall map, but flanks has good opportunity to rush their opponents. Slinging is an option too. Civilizations like Turks or Byzantines can do FI – Fast Imperial and pump out HCC + BBC to rush their opponent. Trading is very easy so Spanish and their team bonus (Better trade carts) Becomes very important. And Spanish becomes one of the best civilization. Since in this map you usually wont lack resources, making best units (Such as paladins, UU, siege, Heavy Cavalry Archers) is recommended, civilizations who has SO (Siege Onagers) Are also very useful, since it is the only unit in the game which can effectivly cut through forest and allow sneak atacks. Trebushets can also kill trees when they aim at them, but that's very slow and micro required progress.
Now lets talk about economy part of it, a lot of peoples struggles to know what is best goals to achieve while booming, ideally you would want to have 4th town center up by min 20 + Have 1st wood and 1st farm + wheelbarrow upgrades. At min 27 you want to have over 100 villagers and by minute 28-29 you need to already clicked up to imperial age, that's general goals. Also when it comes to late game I've read very nice sentence that I thought I'd share.
1.If you are not 200 pop and you don't have excess resources then you need more villagers
2.If you are not 200 pop and you have excess resources then you need more military production buildings
3.If you are 200 pop and you have excess recourse then you have to many villagers
4.If you are 200 pop and you don't have excess resources then your economy is properly balanced!!!!
Yucatan
The map, which has water river in the middle, small passages between them, and heavy amount of hunt, thus making Mongols favorite (because of their hunting speed bonus) usually map is very easy to wall. So imperial age wars are common. Drush,
scout rush are also common, since with that amount of food its easy to produce them and still go up to castle age very quickly.
Late game is about map control, hills control and good unit trading. When fighting you always want to stay on top of hills to gain atack bonus, always patrol your units, and get some good Siege Onagers shot on their army to make sure you will win the battle. Try to always scout for enemies sneak attacks and castles that you can destroy, try to have your base very well secured and walled to prevent hussars raiding.
Custom Scenario CBA
You spawn with 4castles automaticly making you your civilization UU unit until you hit the cap. You win the game when you destroy every your opponents castle, you age up as you get kills and you gain villagers as you destroy buildings. There are 3buildings at the start for everyone which is Gates guarding the way to your castles. Ussualy the weaker civilizations for this map gains additional bonuses, such as less buildings to destroy until you gain villagers, more population of your units, faster achievable next ages. Your main role in this scenario is to not feed (To not take fights which ends up in you losing more units than your enemy) To know what civilizations you counter, and to not give away buildings for free.
Here is a list of what civilizations counter who here:
Aztecs > Japanese, Vikings, Celts, Goths, Franks (Depends)
Byzantines > Japanese, Vikings, Teutons, Celts, Goths, Franks, Aztecs, Huns, Chinese(Depends), Britons(Depends), Mayans(Depends) Turks(Depends).
Britons > Aztecs, Celts, Chinese, Franks, Japanese (Usually), Mayans,Turks(depends)
Celts > Goths, Nothing else but they can fight with some other civs 50/50
Chinese > Aztecs, Celts, Franks, Japanese (Usually), Vikings, Teutons
Franks > Saracen, Goths, Vikings, Other civilizations depends on the range
Goths > Britons, Mayans, Koreans, Chinese, Mongols
Huns > Britons, Mayans, Koreans, Chinese, Mongols, Vikings, Celts, Goths, Aztecs
Japanese > Kills any unit in 1v1 besides War Elephants Jaguar warrior, but it all depends on position, since its very weak when enemy is ranged.
Koreans > Britons, Mayans, Chinese, Mongols, Vikings, Celts, Teutons, Franks, Spanish, Aztecs
Mayans > Japanese (Depends), Celts, Teutons, Vikings, Franks, Aztecs
Mongols > Aztecs, Britons, Mayans, Franks, Celts, Teutons, Vikings, Japanese, Chinese, Turks(Depends)
Persians > Kills any unit in 1v1, but it's slowest unit in the game and can be easily avoided, also weak vs ranged.
Saracens > Everything besides teutons. 50/50 vs franks.
Spanish > Usually counters everything besides Koreans, Persians, Saracen. But can vary
Teutons > Aztecs, Vikings, Celts, Saracens, Persians (to some extent), Japanese, Huns, Goths
Turks > Very dependant on the position it counters every infantry but often loses to ranged units cause it misses alot of it shots.
Vikings > Celts, Goths.
Team Fighting: You want your tanky ally to be infront and protect ranged units which needs to do as much damage as possible, you always want goth ally to be infront of enemy archers so they automaticly focuses them, if you have Persian ally you can't start fight without him. You can often rush enemy castles with overwhelming onslaught and units that has atack bonus versus buildings (Huns, Persians would be perfect)
Note: The more you counter with the civ doesnt necessarily mean its better, cause some civs like goths can counter other civs really hard, but doesn't lose too badly to others.
Also you cant move your army without patrolling it, except for very rare cases that is only actual for pro players.
Short tips and tricks
Give every single monk you have a group, so when rushing you can convert much more easily (Click on one monks Ctrl + 1, Click on second monk Ctrl + 2..etc..) Now you can click 1 click on unit. Click 2 Click on unit. Look now its much easier.
Build a tower on a corner of your opponent walls at Arena. Now you can garrison your villagers inside it, and ungarrison them in the enemy base.
Get a hotkey for an idle villager, now you can search for them much easier.
Edit your hotkeys to find the most comfortable ones for you. Very nice website for it http://aokhotkeys.appspot.com
Try to get *****-wood patch from http://www.voobly.com Now you can click on those trees that you want to cut much easier, and see through them.
Install anti-grey patch from http://www.voobly.com Now you can see that pesky color in your mini-map much easier.
You can place a palisade on a half cut tree and it will dissapear, useful for removing trees around your opponent towncenters, or get a gap between walls
When you wall, you can send a scout through your walls and see if it makes to the other side, if it does, that means there are hole in your wall
You can wall villager one tile away from the tower in palisades, then constantly click on the tower to repair it and it will start repairing it tile away.
You can attack ground a mangonel in front of the direction enemy is moving, and the mangonel will hit shot straight in the middle of enemy army.
If the settings reset itself when hosting a multi player game, chances are you don't have a single player profile in your off-line AoC, try launching it and making one, it should work and keep your settings.
Hills gives you +25% attack bonus versus enemy units and buildings. Use low graphics to see the hills even better!
Be aware of raids, try to have your economy as secure as possible, use walls if necessary!
General counters
Skirmishers counters Archers
Spearman have atack bonus versus horses (Including Cavalry archers, Mangudais)
Scout line counters Monks
Monks counters Knights
Horses counters Skirmishers
Camels counter horses
Archers counters infantry units besides Eagle Warriors and Huskarls.
Huskarls are the most efficient unit to counter archers.
Gunpowder units counters all infantry.
Siege counters buildings and Archers.
Laming
The most talked part of the game, often considered not fair thing to do, but others consider it as a part of the game and that it should be accepted. Laming is the term that defines doing not exactly fair things in order to gain economy/scouting advantage on your opponent mostly in the dark age. Laming can be a lot of different things for example: Attacking enemy boar twice with a scout and luring it to your town center, walling standing still enemy scout in 4 palisade walls, blocking enemy villager which is trying to escape from boar in order for boar to kill it, move in front of enemy deers while he is trying to lure them into his town center, stealing enemy sheeps instead of giving them back to his opponent, killing sheeps with the scout while they are in range of enemy unit so they don't get converted to yours. Killing 1HP buildings (Most common example is farm) with a scout. Placing a palisade wall on a half-cut tree and that way destroying it (You dont have to start building it!!!) Part of these strategies became every day stuff like stealing sheeps or moving in front of enemy deers, others count as bigger laming like stealing enemy boar, moving in front of enemy villager who is escaping the boar, placing palisade walls on their stragglers trees. But laming might not always be effective as peoples think it is, you have to take into consideration that you spend more time laming then usual, which might end up in you having worse economy after all, well lets forget that, lets say you have enough skills to lure a boar without hurting your economy too much, you have to take in consideration a chance that enemy will scout your scout and kill it. Also not to mention going to try and find what to steal might not always lead to success, unlike luring deers to your town center which often doesn't involve much risks. But laming has even more positive things to it, you usually will make your opponent play worse, since he will be annoyed, which leads up for easier game. Also when you steal a boar you don't just win 340food, you make your enemy lose a 340 too. However other people consider themselves nice players and they don't lame, even quite few experts. So its your choice to lame or not to lame.
Platform to play AoC online: http://www.voobly.com http://www.gameranger.com http://www.steam.com (AoCHD)
Hello, this is Rmcoo and welcome to my 17++ guide on all maps, and what I’ve learnt past years from this game, i will talk about various strategies, civilization choices, and tactics on all popular maps, and the improvisations. This information is by no means 100% correct, but I will try give you as much facts as possible, I won’t write build orders, just talk about general strategy.
Arabia 1v1
Pretty much the most played map out there, and it has always been the most popular map in all years AoC has been alive,and mainly played only with huns, strategies has been varying from Full feudal skirmishes with Skirmishers and Spearman’s, to full walling and advancing to castle age as quickly as possible, into Scouts + Archers >> Castle age CA(Cavarly Archers) which is the most popular strategy, which consists of basic concept. You advance to feudal age at about 9:40-10:10 Make 4-8 scouts (Depends on the map you have, what your opponent is doing, what castle time are you trying to achieve) When making 8scouts you typically want to add bloodlines too, into archers (2Archery ranges into 4Archery ranges when advancing) After getting castle age you have wide possibilities to do, from full CA, to rams, skirmishers, knights, lcavs. Possibilities are endless. But that’s not the only strategy you can do, and not only Huns that can be played on this map. Carlos Ferdinand has proved that early M@A can do a lot of damage if are not dealt quickly with. The basic point of M@A is to arrive when enemy hits feudal age with 3-5 M@A and sometimes with some forward villager to make it into fwd, or just to distract your opponent with your M@A enough to gain you economy advantage, faster up times, also when you make M@A your opponent will almost always make archers, which makes up for a good skirmisher rush. Other very popular strategy is Drush into wide possibility of variety. Drush stands for Dark Age Rush, which means making Militia who arrives at enemy base before he hits feudal age, to distract economy enough, to let you hit feudal age with much better economy, in order to or advance to castle age really fast, or do really strong rush. Though it’s not so common to see a Huns drush, but its popular with meso civilizations (Mayans, Aztecs) Since the eagle warrior is stronger than scout, also Aztecs has +50gold which helps for having 2extra militias. There is other strategies like Full Scouts, which involves never advancing (or advancing very late) To the castle age and making fully upgraded scouts in feudal age from 3+ stables. Very old-school style involved never ending feudal wars, which mainly consisted of skirmishers and spearman, but it’s not used to this day since it’s not considered effective anymore.
Arabia 4v4
There is two main positions. Flanks and Pockets. Flanks goal is to survive feudal-castle age with the help of pocket, and raid down enemy flank. Flanks spawn on the side of teams.
Pocket goal is to help their flank surviving, and killing enemy pocket with knights. Their main goal is to advance to castle age as fast as they can, and start producing knights while doing a little bit of boom. They spawn in the middle of the team. If pocket is a meso civilization which is Mayans or Aztecs, since they can’t make knights they have to make other units. As for Mayans its pretty easy, their UU is fast, cheap archer which is fast enough to arrive at flanks and effective. Aztecs on the other hand doesn’t have good choice, so they often end up walling themselves, hoping flank would survive and go fast imperial spamming EEW (Elite Eagle Warriors) Into their opponents. If Aztec player is confident enough, he can try and rush enemy pocket with forward mush (Monk rush).
Another possibility is to set up a big Team Wall (Having half of the map walled by the same team) And try to get to imperial age and have technology advantage on their enemies.
Arena 1v1
Very interesting game, in early stages of the game considered boom-style map which trying to get to imperial and pump out those expensive, fully upgraded units. These days, with a lot of Edie_ Influence arena has become very aggressive map, which usually ends up in one player rushing the other down. Very important thing in this map is considered Relics, since they give gold overtime and they are usually pretty easy to get. Relics are collected with monks, placed in monasteries and give gold overtime. This is where the first strategy comes from and the strategy we will start talking about which is smush (Original name is from Saracens Monk rush) But this term is used for monk rushing with any civilization, that has good amount of researches available for monks. The point of this strategy is to convert anything you move into, and with siege try to push your opponent out of the game. With researches like Redemption (Allowing you to convert siege and buildings) and sanctity (giving your monks +15hp) Block printing (Your monks has +3 range) they can become unstoppable. Monk rush relies heavily on gold so its often known strategy, to not make any villagers, instead have almost all your economy on gold, have 4+ monasteries and just spam monks. The fact you don’t make economy allows all your concentration and micro go in controlling monks. The following is the TOP 3 civilizations to go for monk rush.
1. Aztecs
2. Saracens
3.Japanese
Another strategy we will talk about is castle drop. The name of it tells everything you need to know about it. From the moment you advance to castle age, you build castle by your opponent walls, make UU , Siege, sometimes monks and push your opponent out of the game. The castle age time you should aim for is ~15:00 best civilizations to do is which has ranged UU. Such as. Mayans, Britons, Koreans, Franks (Cheaper castles helps a lot) Turks, Spanish. The variation of this strategy is to castle drop and try to reach imperial age very quickly. (min 20-23) to produce trebuchets, siege and UU or monks with Block Printing (+3 range) with doing this strategy, you might want to make mangonels if your UU is archer type unit, otherwise you will be very weak to ram push from your opponent. Main point when rushing is to prevent your opponents spreading to the sides of the map, which often contains little piles of gold and stone, and opponent can recover. Also its recommended to get all the relics, since you will be the one controlling all the map. There is other popular strategy, trying to advance to castle age as early as possible (14min+) Building one monastery, trying to collect relics before your opponent is castle age and just booming (making big economy). There is other types of rushes which involves making siege, and knights, eagles whatever you can think of. Also there is fun strategy with civilizations that has good UU that works well versus buildings mainly Vikings, Huns, Japanese. You advance to castle age in average time (16~min) Build castle in your base that It cant be noticed by enemy with scout. Building as much UU (Unique Units) and fully upgrading them before enemy has too big economies, making two petards to destroy their walls, bringing your units inside their economy quickly killing town centers and villagers. Very all-in strategy since if your opponent is able to defend from it, you are out of the game. But can be very fun and work.
Arena 4v4
Actually not much different from Arabia 4v4, but the flanks do not flush (Feudal age rush) but instead they go for castle drops, siege push, monk push… Anything that could work. While pockets try to boom up, or sling (Sending resources) to their flanks in order for them to do overwhelming push and leave the game in 3v4 stance.
Water 1v1
Most common civilization to this setting is Vikings, because of cheaper docks and boats they become dominant in water, the goal is to advance at typical Arabia feudal age time 10:10 and producing galleys from 3docks (later adding more) The food for villagers should be gained from fishing ships produced in dark age (3-5) This is probably most micro required type of game. Where you always have to move around with your galleys and stop only for 1second to shoot. Fletching should be priority before fighting, while focusing on the fight don’t forget to check for idle villagers, and never forget to keep your town center occupied. In Castle age the most important technology to research after war galleys is ballistics. Since without it your opponent can run 2-3 war galleys from side to side in front of his army and all your war galleys will miss their shots and you will lose the battle badly. Ballistics makes your ships always hit the target you shoot, and it is researched at university. Late game gold becomes very important, the guy who is first to sell as much as resources in market as they can, before the price goes of usually wins. Relics are also very important. Any islands containing gold should be used if you are controlling the water, recommended building castle on them too. If you receive full water control in imperial age, very important ship becomes Cannon Galleon since it can destroy buildings from land. It requires Chemistry, and custom research at the dock to be able to be made. Also possible to upgrade them into Elite, giving them more range and attack.
Water 4v4
Not much to be told here. Water control is the most important thing, and should be achieved with entire team teamwork. Often there will be players who will stay longer in feudal age to control water in feudal age. Who will stay longer in castle age, and control the water in castle age, same in imperial age. Some civilizations are better for land attacks, these civilizations should be utilized to transport villagers onto enemy island and try to raid their economy. If you have pretty secure back water, water trading with trade cogs is an option too.
Water/Land maps
This is basically for following maps: Baltic, Mediterranean, Crater Lake, Atlantean relics
The game play shouldn’t be different from water maps, but there is additional strategies. On these maps Mongols becomes an option, due to their 1min earlier advancing, and players having docks very near each other, you can kill enemy fishing ships before they even get to feudal get, and giving yourself huge advantage. Also on these type of maps even if you lose water, land attack is still a possibility since land is connected, the only issue is the map is usually pretty easy to wall, and should be done immediately after you start taking lead in water. On other maps like Atlantean relics and Crater Lake there is very limited amount of gold in the land, and water control becomes super important.
There is not much different from Team Games to 1v1, so I’m not splitting these sections.
Regicide Fortress 1v1
You start with loads of villagers, prebuilt base, and walls around you.
Not common, but very fun map. Often stricted to Mayans and Chinese, since their UU is cheap and effective. Point is to try and go to castle age very quickly due to starting amount of villagers. Trying to get 3Town centers while producing your plumed archers or Chu-Ko-Nu. If you control the land you can try and raid your opponent with your archers, get forward castle on them, try to push them with siege. All of these options tend to be effective.
Black Forest
Map which is usually played in TG 4v4 or 3v3, since its play style is very similar to Arena there is not much to write here. Map is covered in wood and there is small passages between each players. Very easy to wall map, but flanks has good opportunity to rush their opponents. Slinging is an option too. Civilizations like Turks or Byzantines can do FI – Fast Imperial and pump out HCC + BBC to rush their opponent. Trading is very easy so Spanish and their team bonus (Better trade carts) Becomes very important. And Spanish becomes one of the best civilization. Since in this map you usually wont lack resources, making best units (Such as paladins, UU, siege, Heavy Cavalry Archers) is recommended, civilizations who has SO (Siege Onagers) Are also very useful, since it is the only unit in the game which can effectivly cut through forest and allow sneak atacks. Trebushets can also kill trees when they aim at them, but that's very slow and micro required progress.
Now lets talk about economy part of it, a lot of peoples struggles to know what is best goals to achieve while booming, ideally you would want to have 4th town center up by min 20 + Have 1st wood and 1st farm + wheelbarrow upgrades. At min 27 you want to have over 100 villagers and by minute 28-29 you need to already clicked up to imperial age, that's general goals. Also when it comes to late game I've read very nice sentence that I thought I'd share.
1.If you are not 200 pop and you don't have excess resources then you need more villagers
2.If you are not 200 pop and you have excess resources then you need more military production buildings
3.If you are 200 pop and you have excess recourse then you have to many villagers
4.If you are 200 pop and you don't have excess resources then your economy is properly balanced!!!!
Yucatan
The map, which has water river in the middle, small passages between them, and heavy amount of hunt, thus making Mongols favorite (because of their hunting speed bonus) usually map is very easy to wall. So imperial age wars are common. Drush,
scout rush are also common, since with that amount of food its easy to produce them and still go up to castle age very quickly.
Late game is about map control, hills control and good unit trading. When fighting you always want to stay on top of hills to gain atack bonus, always patrol your units, and get some good Siege Onagers shot on their army to make sure you will win the battle. Try to always scout for enemies sneak attacks and castles that you can destroy, try to have your base very well secured and walled to prevent hussars raiding.
Custom Scenario CBA
You spawn with 4castles automaticly making you your civilization UU unit until you hit the cap. You win the game when you destroy every your opponents castle, you age up as you get kills and you gain villagers as you destroy buildings. There are 3buildings at the start for everyone which is Gates guarding the way to your castles. Ussualy the weaker civilizations for this map gains additional bonuses, such as less buildings to destroy until you gain villagers, more population of your units, faster achievable next ages. Your main role in this scenario is to not feed (To not take fights which ends up in you losing more units than your enemy) To know what civilizations you counter, and to not give away buildings for free.
Here is a list of what civilizations counter who here:
Aztecs > Japanese, Vikings, Celts, Goths, Franks (Depends)
Byzantines > Japanese, Vikings, Teutons, Celts, Goths, Franks, Aztecs, Huns, Chinese(Depends), Britons(Depends), Mayans(Depends) Turks(Depends).
Britons > Aztecs, Celts, Chinese, Franks, Japanese (Usually), Mayans,Turks(depends)
Celts > Goths, Nothing else but they can fight with some other civs 50/50
Chinese > Aztecs, Celts, Franks, Japanese (Usually), Vikings, Teutons
Franks > Saracen, Goths, Vikings, Other civilizations depends on the range
Goths > Britons, Mayans, Koreans, Chinese, Mongols
Huns > Britons, Mayans, Koreans, Chinese, Mongols, Vikings, Celts, Goths, Aztecs
Japanese > Kills any unit in 1v1 besides War Elephants Jaguar warrior, but it all depends on position, since its very weak when enemy is ranged.
Koreans > Britons, Mayans, Chinese, Mongols, Vikings, Celts, Teutons, Franks, Spanish, Aztecs
Mayans > Japanese (Depends), Celts, Teutons, Vikings, Franks, Aztecs
Mongols > Aztecs, Britons, Mayans, Franks, Celts, Teutons, Vikings, Japanese, Chinese, Turks(Depends)
Persians > Kills any unit in 1v1, but it's slowest unit in the game and can be easily avoided, also weak vs ranged.
Saracens > Everything besides teutons. 50/50 vs franks.
Spanish > Usually counters everything besides Koreans, Persians, Saracen. But can vary
Teutons > Aztecs, Vikings, Celts, Saracens, Persians (to some extent), Japanese, Huns, Goths
Turks > Very dependant on the position it counters every infantry but often loses to ranged units cause it misses alot of it shots.
Vikings > Celts, Goths.
Team Fighting: You want your tanky ally to be infront and protect ranged units which needs to do as much damage as possible, you always want goth ally to be infront of enemy archers so they automaticly focuses them, if you have Persian ally you can't start fight without him. You can often rush enemy castles with overwhelming onslaught and units that has atack bonus versus buildings (Huns, Persians would be perfect)
Note: The more you counter with the civ doesnt necessarily mean its better, cause some civs like goths can counter other civs really hard, but doesn't lose too badly to others.
Also you cant move your army without patrolling it, except for very rare cases that is only actual for pro players.
Short tips and tricks
Give every single monk you have a group, so when rushing you can convert much more easily (Click on one monks Ctrl + 1, Click on second monk Ctrl + 2..etc..) Now you can click 1 click on unit. Click 2 Click on unit. Look now its much easier.
Build a tower on a corner of your opponent walls at Arena. Now you can garrison your villagers inside it, and ungarrison them in the enemy base.
Get a hotkey for an idle villager, now you can search for them much easier.
Edit your hotkeys to find the most comfortable ones for you. Very nice website for it http://aokhotkeys.appspot.com
Try to get *****-wood patch from http://www.voobly.com Now you can click on those trees that you want to cut much easier, and see through them.
Install anti-grey patch from http://www.voobly.com Now you can see that pesky color in your mini-map much easier.
You can place a palisade on a half cut tree and it will dissapear, useful for removing trees around your opponent towncenters, or get a gap between walls
When you wall, you can send a scout through your walls and see if it makes to the other side, if it does, that means there are hole in your wall
You can wall villager one tile away from the tower in palisades, then constantly click on the tower to repair it and it will start repairing it tile away.
You can attack ground a mangonel in front of the direction enemy is moving, and the mangonel will hit shot straight in the middle of enemy army.
If the settings reset itself when hosting a multi player game, chances are you don't have a single player profile in your off-line AoC, try launching it and making one, it should work and keep your settings.
Hills gives you +25% attack bonus versus enemy units and buildings. Use low graphics to see the hills even better!
Be aware of raids, try to have your economy as secure as possible, use walls if necessary!
General counters
Skirmishers counters Archers
Spearman have atack bonus versus horses (Including Cavalry archers, Mangudais)
Scout line counters Monks
Monks counters Knights
Horses counters Skirmishers
Camels counter horses
Archers counters infantry units besides Eagle Warriors and Huskarls.
Huskarls are the most efficient unit to counter archers.
Gunpowder units counters all infantry.
Siege counters buildings and Archers.
Laming
The most talked part of the game, often considered not fair thing to do, but others consider it as a part of the game and that it should be accepted. Laming is the term that defines doing not exactly fair things in order to gain economy/scouting advantage on your opponent mostly in the dark age. Laming can be a lot of different things for example: Attacking enemy boar twice with a scout and luring it to your town center, walling standing still enemy scout in 4 palisade walls, blocking enemy villager which is trying to escape from boar in order for boar to kill it, move in front of enemy deers while he is trying to lure them into his town center, stealing enemy sheeps instead of giving them back to his opponent, killing sheeps with the scout while they are in range of enemy unit so they don't get converted to yours. Killing 1HP buildings (Most common example is farm) with a scout. Placing a palisade wall on a half-cut tree and that way destroying it (You dont have to start building it!!!) Part of these strategies became every day stuff like stealing sheeps or moving in front of enemy deers, others count as bigger laming like stealing enemy boar, moving in front of enemy villager who is escaping the boar, placing palisade walls on their stragglers trees. But laming might not always be effective as peoples think it is, you have to take into consideration that you spend more time laming then usual, which might end up in you having worse economy after all, well lets forget that, lets say you have enough skills to lure a boar without hurting your economy too much, you have to take in consideration a chance that enemy will scout your scout and kill it. Also not to mention going to try and find what to steal might not always lead to success, unlike luring deers to your town center which often doesn't involve much risks. But laming has even more positive things to it, you usually will make your opponent play worse, since he will be annoyed, which leads up for easier game. Also when you steal a boar you don't just win 340food, you make your enemy lose a 340 too. However other people consider themselves nice players and they don't lame, even quite few experts. So its your choice to lame or not to lame.
Platform to play AoC online: http://www.voobly.com http://www.gameranger.com http://www.steam.com (AoCHD)